of Hollywood 4 151

they re-created the in terms of contemporary activities and lib- erties, from imperial military adventures to the inter-male delights of rural, and sometimes cruel, sport. That fruitll flexibility and the related low profile of the Robin Hood texts changed in the twentieth century, as one medium became dominant and provided several technically powerful and highly pop- Robin Hood of Hollywood ular re-creations of Robin Hood's story. Each of these tended to dom- inate the following versions and to pressure them into being either pale copies or deliberate, and sometimes forced, rejections of the

dominant contemporary image- of the hero. The newly potent medium, was, of course, film, and then ia jUn- ior relative, television. In these, a new and authoritative image of the hero was created, drawing on the earlier versions but clearly different in a number of ways- Less aggressive than the social bandit, more ac- tive than the displaced lord, more leadedy than the rural esquire, Robin Hood of Hollywood strides, smiles, leaps on and horse, brandishes his bow, speaks with large gestures and noble sentiments, and always, unlike both the social bandit and the distressed gentle- The htlaw on Screen man, dominates the scene endrely. Addressing his men from on high, swinging though the air to menace the Normans, taunting his ene- ' mies from a battlement, standing with arrow ominously poised, he is A Visual Image a theatrical figure, but one that the magic of cinema make, in one swift cut, both potent at a distance and intimately exciting in close-up. B~ the end of the century Robin Hood, now at least five Robin Hood of Hollywood is an action hero. &'hat in the novels hundred years old, had taken many identities relating to the periods,.' was a matter of lengthy explanations of sieges and battles--scenes . ,d genres in which he had appeared. But whether he that only a skillful novelist like Scott could realize with real excite- bold yeoman, rueful lord, or rural gentleman, he had not so far been . ment-is in film a matter of images of speed and thrill. What in the hefom of a major work of art. Each version of the outlaw hero had plays is a slow-moving exchange of feeling, which ,ived at least one solid, lucid, and sunriving re~resent~~~~~,bu work well if the writing is poetical enough-as Munday's is o-ionally there no to enshrine and to transmit the meaning as Ten- n~son'sis very rarely-in fdm is a tender two-shot, symbolic the hero, no Robin Hood equivalent of Malov's Le Dx*h Id@ of the King. Though that reduced cul foli%e, emotive music, and appropriately low lighting. Film can wm- or T~~~~~~~~~ bine the two aspects of Robin, not only an active mm, a fighter, a profile might suit the idea of an outlaw, eluding the firi~of great leader of men but also gentle and understanding in personal relations ,much as he constraints of a sheriff and his jail, it with the poor, with his male friends, with Marian. Film, curiously, the tradition all the more flexible and mo helped to laborates and fulfills the implications of the very early , ,, something as ironic and insubstantial as Peacock's Ma also operate by cut, montage, change of focus, by suggestive ian for nineteenth-century writers the most authoritative available, they felt all the more free to let their imaginations rather than novel-like elaboration. It is no accident that the 152 + Chapter 4 I Robin Hood of Hollywood + and features that are romantically exciting: as well as Fairbanks and best comparison with the Gest is with the major films of the twenti- Flynn, John Derek, who starred in the fairly unexciting Row of eth century, nor that a remarkable resemblance exists between the Sbwood Forest of 1950, and Patrick Bergin, of the 1991 Robin Hood, early and broadside ballads and the pacing and impact of a television both have classic matinee-idol looks, while Michael Praed, who series: each takes little time to experience, each deals with a few in- stirred many a heart with the 1984 television Robin ofSherwood offers terlocking scenes, and each focuses on one aspect of the hero's iden- the most dramatic profiIe of dl. tity and his relation with a few other characters. the body of the sexualized Robin speaks directly to the au- Modern film and ancient are both performance genres, de- Whik dience, the plot of the films usually celebrates the gendered triangle voted to telling a story to a substantial and wide-ranging audience. story, both heterosexual and homosocial, which had developed in the They do not expect the close attention of the novel-reader or the play- nineteenth century and was passed on from the theatrical tradition. goer; they need to seize and to keep attention to transmit meaning As Kevin Ha.indicates,' at least three of the seven pmgrq Robin through rapid movement and broad strokes, both by the hero and the Hood films had this story in some form. The 1912 Robin Hood made artist. But what in ballad would have been added by voice, gestures, by Edair has a Smith-de Koven based story about Guy of Gisborne's and probably by additional music fiom the performer, in film is cre- determination to marry Marian, which leads to his capturing Robin; ated by various techniques-color, camera work, design, music, and getting tied to a tree is the interestingly phallic mode of capture (as the engaging presence of the actors. well as a cowboy motif), and that is how Guy himself ends up. The The Robin of the twentieth century was re-created in film, and ;, 1913 Robin Hood by American Standard has a triangle based on Will though Britain made a significant contribution, the outlaw focus Scarlet and Christabel, daughter of the sheriff; her name seems to de- moved from Sherwood to Hollywood. At the same time, Robin's scend fiom Egan. The British and Colonial Films Robin Hood Out- name changed, subtly but decisively. While British people still call hwed of 1912 has Robin rescue Marian "from an evil knight,'' as him Robin Hood, two words with equal stress, to North Americans Harty's synopsis puts it (455). In the Fairbanks film the rival is Guy, he is Robinhood, with a firm stress on the first syllable: the metrics of played as a silent villain with black-rimmed eyes, lurching from vio- the new name are the same as those of Hollywood itself. - lent threat to craven defeat. Though this film gives no suggestion that More dramatic and memorable changes than that have come Guy and Robin have a dose relationship mediated by Marian, the upon the hero-in film. His body is now a central feature. Whereas the 1938 film depicts Sir Guy as an attractive alternative hero. As Sir Guy, tights were originally deployed so that nineteenth-century actresses Basil Rathbone is a villain with an admirable military stance, espe- playing Robin could show their legs, the male body became the focus cially compared with the cowardly sheriff. Guy finally fights Robin of display in the early films. In the 1922 film Douglas Fairbanks rep- Hood as an equal in a classic sword fight, which even involves near- resents Robin Hood at first as a heavily armed, fully dressed noble- embracing between the two well-matched males; the scene illustrates man. But after he returns from crusade and is outlawed, his body is the feeling "between men" that Eve Kosofsk Sedgurck has outlined liberated from the stiff concealments of robes and armor, and he (see p. 128). The triangle's secondary, male-bonding, force--or per- wean an acrobat's revealing costume to match his darting leaps, . haps in this and some other cases its primary force-recurs vividly in slides, and triumphant salutes. Wlth Fairbanks the protruding chest the television series Ro6in of Sberwood in which both the sheriff and is as important as the legs and arms, but with Errol Flynn in The Ad- Guy of disborne are depicted as inherently gay. Both have a pro- ventures of Robin Hood (1938) repeated emphasis is on powerfd nounced interest in the conspicuously handsome Robin; only the thighs, whether gripping his horse, poised suggestively close to Mar- sheriffs lumpish and clearly undersexed brother, the abbot, has any ian, or pldin direct, and sexually challenging, opposition to Princc interest in Marian, and that is merely for her money. John. Cinema and television have always selected men with figure

A

156 + Chapter 4 Robin Hood of Ho11pood + 157 relationships as well as achievements-the archetypd Holl~ood men to a tournament and off on crusade are 111 pan grandiose rnan--is realized in those structures. -1~ cinema that was very much connected with, and creative B~~ the twentieth-centuv filmic Robin has an idenuty wider 06 the myrh of Hollywood. From D. W. Griffih to C. B, de ~d~, than his attractive body and his sociosexud interactions; as in earlier and with Fairbankis Robin Hood marking an important stage along versions his inherent resistance to some form of authori~always gives the fib realized the new American sense of power and splendor: his role a kind of political meaning. This varies considerably but in he atle had been renewed only because it had ((like many red a- generd,-harts an rnpanding role for the hero, so that twentieth- des) crossed the Atlantic. antury Robin Hood of Hollysmod becomes a politid figure with : But this splendor was not simple, either in its nature or its direc- ~n-rns broader than the 10~~11and regional significanceof the tion. AS the cr~~sadersmarched off to war oversea, film watchers in late figure; indeed, his impact transcends the English na- 1922 mlfit have been reminded of the Ameri- depamur to fight in dond significance &at he developed in the nineteenth century. Europe only five years before. But the outcome in film is different. A Srrikng symbol of the 1922 film is realized in the historically the s~onglygenesed Earl of Huntingdon, Robin is proclaimed conscious title sequence. We see at first line from Charles Kingsle~: Richard'~second in mrunand on crusade, but he r-s home soon at Marian's request- He k branded a coward because ofit; his royal h- SO fleet the works of men ther figure is much saddened by apparent fault. Robin$ decision ~a&to their earth again; to return must have contemporary political meaning: by 1922 the Ancient and holy things principle of American isolationism WLS well established, md the story Fade lie a dream.3 tells us hat whatever the immediate opprobrium, it is right to ~h~ initial meaning is a medieval-modern contrast: this fiction Out at home, not enwk costly adventurer overseas. This will reactivate he fleeting medieval world, and there is nothing in- Robin k not only a Hollywood appropriation of masculine aris- herend,, different from Scott's work in that. But as the film be%ins tocratic grandeur; he is also a true modern American. The film a quite different, America-focused form of renoation showed how new Robin could be, but it also indicarod that Robin and ' seems to be under way. Firs we see a ruined medid castle, in En- ' Hood piawe could make real money.5 For that reason alone it wu gland, on a hilltop. Then in a montage suddenly the asde as a crucial sep in the re-formation of heoutlaw as a mentie&-centq ' ., We not just admiring the ruins of the past: we are dng and international hero, one to be widdy imitated in film. hemrebuilt in America. This is more than a metaphor. The first set A political meaning for the outlaw myth is also to be found in the seems rnasrive, it was indeed, not just a small gatehoux and a 1938 amstaring Errol Flynn. Abandoning the idea of starting with rmtte, like he castle on a hill we see several tima. FairbanEs Pro- a touIn-ent (though % Behlmer shows, some at Warner Brothers dunion -, including his engineer brother, built a ninev-f0ot-high thought an audience would expa it)? this plunges Robin from he entrance on Santa Monica ~oulevard.~It long stood there, Pro- s~ into resistance. The film opens with a peasant uhgng deer, he with both fi' viding proof of the way in which America Normans descending on him, and Robin resisting them and seaing nmcial and technological power, create mm the grandeur of th hhfree. The peasat-poacher motif is found in Henry Gdbeds 19u past. retelling ofthe stories (see'pp. 175-76). and this has become rhe Stan- The same sense of splendor dominata the opening Opening in visual form; it is no doubt a major raonwhy many whi&-unlike in almost all other Robin Hood films-we do people now think the forat laws are a central part of he myrh. smrr in hefor-. In fact, the film is nearly half over before Robin resistance is dearly on behalf of such little people: the men comaan oudaw. The massive crowd scenes and the march Pwmessages to met Robin at the Gdows Oak are old, bowed 158 + Chapter 4 I dobin Hood of Hollywood + 159 down, by suffering. Some commentators have felt that this is more than general good deeds. Ina Hark has argued that as Robin shows deincreasingly sympathetic Marian around his base, and es- pecially as a group of poor dl praise and bless him, just away from the main fmt, we are looking at a medieval version of a New Deal camp7 those Roosevclt-inspired systems of public suppofl for the Unem- ployed in the mid 19~0s.' Hark argues that this would not be contrary to the and even interests of the Warners themselves at this time, who were sympathetic to Roosevelt's program. That interpretation provides a credible 1od meaning for Robin's re&ctance to oppression, but severd commentators go further, sug- gating hat the Normans are represented in many ways like the storm - troopers who were causing so much legalized disruption in Germany at the time. The fact that Warner Brothers's own agent in Berlin had been beaten to death in 1935 for being Jewish makes this a credible ar- gument, and events in Europe were certainly influential in many Wolfgang Korngold's decision to stay in Hollywood and write the score was iself conditioned by Hitleis move against Awia.* The association with the brownshirts is easy to make when watching the am, an antifascist Robin is an appealing idea; yet some of the ,ne most suggestive of ~arism,such as the scene in which b?orman soldiers smash up shops, are also found in the 1922 film. The ant&- re-creation of the Robrn nood of & modern period, interpremtian may have more to do with the politid context then nationd, strongly natural, and more masculine cMn than and now with any conscious plan on the part of the filmmakers. usual, with Flynn's insouciant charm, powerful highs, and masterful Errol FlynnYsfine rhetoric as a Saxon resister has a widely mobile Olivia de Havillmd. B~~ in terms cable democratic meaning, as in his statement to Prince Joh ides the strongest "bemeen pattern Saxons just aren't going to put up with these oppressions any longe who often was the heroic lead in in the oath he administers to the outlaw band: playing Sir Guy of Gisborne with great powec the final sword fi&tghtvid~ re-creates the special tension bemeen the mo men in a you the freemen of this forest swear to despoil the rich only highly intimate encounter (fiwre 4. give to the poor, to shelter the old and the helpless, to protea , f the 1938 women rich or poor, Norman or Saxon, and swear to fight for a at &is dismce er than so~iopoliti~&-&~film has been free England, to protect her loyally until the return of our kin!? and sovereign Richard the Lionheart, and swear to fight to the was death against all oppression. sion, and a remastered print success- in cinemas in 1998. Flynn's Robin dominated he field such a Mguely ri&t-thiiking politics may be all that mas ater productions (in 1946 and 1950, star- Dle away from the film; in many ways its greatest strengrh g cornel Wilde and John Derek) presented their heroes as being 160 + Chapter 4 Robin Hood ofHoll~~~d+ 161

like one of the many ex-officers who won parliamenrary sCdtsfor his son. And in what might seem a third case, Son of Robin Hood (1958). the son was actually a daughter. The John Derek film of 1950, Labour in the 1945 election. Rowof , avoided using the name Robin Hood in its This might well seem a reclaiming of the English outlaw from the internadonalism of the American films, but the actual siution is title, but as if to clarify dependency it cast as Alan Hale, more complex. ATV had decided on Robin Hood as the topic of one who had already played the part in the Flynn and the Fairbanks films. of a set of drama serials they planned to produce, and they had lccess The dominance by the Flynn film was evident in the lackluster to some writers who were happy to work even for low British quality of a number of nevertheless fairly successful Robin Hood the writers had been blacklisted as a result of the collaboration be- films of the 1950s and later. The first was Oisney's The Swry of Robin tween American studio owners, including Warner Brothers, and Hood and Hir Merrie Mm (1952). which starred Richard Todd, better House Un-American Activities Committee under the inspiration of known then and since for playing modern military men. This film was made in Britain, as were others: inexpensive films with less than Senator Joseph McCarthy, authoritative Robins were made by Hammer Studios, notorious for The story of these events is still not fully told, but Ring Lardner Jr. cheap but intense horror films. In these Robin Hood films the hero is on the record as having written, with Ian McClellan Hunter, about twenry of the first year's scripts, udng a number of pseudonym.9 was an amiable, democratic, and rather unheroic figure, played- - by fairly obscure actors such as Don Taylor in Men of Shmvwd Forest Many of the first episodes were by an otherwise unknown "Eric he (1957) and Barrie Ingham in A Challengefor Robin ~ood(1~6z). These Heath," and so the series appears to been established by writers whose undersding of sheriff-like o$tppression was a good deal sharper -films and actors were overshadowed not only by the Flynn vehicle but also by the version that most people remember from the 1950s-in dun even the most liberty-loving English of the period. The situation the bulb shape of Richard Greene from the Associated Television of these writers has been imaginatively 1:ealized by Michael Eaton in his series that began in 1955. 'script for the semi-Robin Hood film FehTvaveh (1991), and there The Adventurn of Robin Hood has always been felt to be a very is some irony in the fact that the renun to England of a Robin Hood English Iffiir. Greene was a well-spoken, pleasant-looking officer type; with a genuinely radical feel-albeit with the social position of gende- he had in hct worked in Hollywood, as in the 1939 The Hound ofthe man-is due in large part to the internationalization of the story. The BaskewiIles, bbl was best known for various forms of stiff-upper-lip series was released in the United States at the same time as in Britain British derring-do. Quaint as the series looks in black and white, with and was well received: the audience in the two countries was reported small sets, fixed cameras, and actors doubling up as in a repertory as thirty million people for each episode in the early pan of the series, company, it was well written and well acted. which included 143 separate stories. lo The sociopolitical meaning of the series derives from its period. Most of the twentieth-century Robin Hoods of television and film are in some way a gentleman. The twentieth century may have been the Robin returns home from crusade and finds that his house has been century of the common man, but there is rarely anything lower-class taken and the country is in very poor shape under the greedy Nor- about the hero. American versions might make him seem less lofiy; mans. A relationship with the postwar British decision to dispense Errol Flynn is named "Sir Robin of Locksley," which has a friendly, with Churchill and the Tory government seems close. The thrust yout6ful (if inaccurate) ring io it, and Kevin Gstner has a strongly of the aeries is to reject oppression against the ordinary people of democratic air to his character. But the implied consensus is that it is England; corrupt tan collectors and legal officials misuse their au- pdeay appropriate to have a man of noble birth leading a popular thority, and Normans in general are represented as an oppressive dm movement-and of course the leaders of the Democrats in America rather than a race. The ideology of postwar Britain seeking social re- and the Labour Party in Britain would not contradict that view. conmction and personal liberty is strong, and Robin comes across i I B L. 162 Chapter 4 Robin Hood of Hol~pood+ 16~ Suggest more strongly that it is time for a break with the romantic Vqing the Pattern of the Hollywood OU~~W.One is lit& known and hard trace: B~~ if that was until the early sixties the mainstream pattern, it was to cinema in 1973 as Wo@head, it was mde by H~~- mer Studios for London Weekend Television in 1969 as a pilot for a soon to be questioned, and indeed much of the Robin Hood makingin the later half of the twentieth century can be seen as resist- presenting Robin as a yeoman who is involved in redistic ing in some way an "~oll~woodized"Robin, that hero who bloody rebellion against the Norman lords. Using he cinema ,,erit6 Of the is noble, handsome, gentlemanly, rashly brave, violent in the Of with dark, rainy settings, rdistic mstuming and con- good, blandly representative of nariond and even international liberal- text, and offering a left-wing political agenda, &is is a new rading of ism, devoted in a slightly distant way to his lady, leader of a loyal band the hero, in the handsome but definitely rough and of ready and lower-class fighters who are often comic and even a little ready figure of David Warbeck. oafish. M~~~of the films from the 1960s and later overtly or implicitly Dw~itebeing known, Wo&head both marked a new phase criticize at least some of those positions-in part just for filmic inno- of British Robin Hood r&m and can be seen as a dkect stimulus to vation, but also to express a range of ideas about other identities and a much film, (1976). This was di- values ~~bi~~~~d might have and other politics he might represent. re~tedby Richard kster, with a script by JwGoldman; ~~dl~~ someof these variations are simply carnival-like, such as cartoon Jones Credits the latter with the unusual fcatura of he filmall including Warner Brothers's own Rabbit Hood Of Ke*n Hqremah7 this is a 'dddepamm from other Robin the DisneY venion of '97) Hood screen effom" (437)- Robin is very different in appearan-, de- 1949 and of 1959. ' ~~bi~becomes a dashing fox with a suave English voice; in the 1981 meanor and meaning from the Fai~bPnk;-FlyM-~renearcherype. M~~~~~ version he is represented as "a bold and chivalrous Fi,he is older: he has been on mdefor some menty and equipped with his own Lincoln green Skin. In both cases the has remrned tired and sIow-~ov~~~.He is also no gendeman, a mm makers are essentially playing with and so effectively promulgating the people On a Par with the eqdybig, tough, and battered Lit- the archeypal Robin Hood of Hollywood, though neither is ' '"John. Scan Conne~and Nicol Wdiamson phy heroles With m- some sense of ideological value. Disney combines a sense Of bun relish7 fir from the smooth sophistication they so ohen had to vigor, even +it.&ry, in the Anglo-American voices that play the most don for the stage or screen. robust parts and traces of racism and sexism in portraying the But if the film celebrate a renewed resistance by senior citizens as Robin unwillingly reponds to Norman oppression ous figures as and usually African animals, wearing frilly cos- ' by an tumes. The Muppets movie is less politi~allydubious, locating in soldierly and weqRobert Shaw as the sheriff), a bigger sur- prise is in store for the well-trained fimgoer. Robin does not sur*ve: ~i~~ piga what seems the first trace of feminism in the tradition: she . rescues a less than bold Robin-Kermit by leading an army gallant here is no happy ending with marriqe gcd alebntion, stoups of wine and merrine~.The film foIIows the pane= chickens against Sheriff Gonzo. Kermit's embarrassed refusal to give : the GeSt as ~~bi~ her even one ''kissy" in return, while usual in Muppet-dom, is at least at the hands of the priorfis-but there is a grand mist. The pri- an exposure of the woman-avoiding masculinism embedded in sd ele~d~adtouchi@y played by , is Marian many of the texts. herseltwho has den to a busy life as a nun and hder lfter ~~bi~ warner Brothers's Robin and the Seven Hoods from 1964 is in lefr her for ~mding.With some initial reluamce, she rejoins the who deserted her for war, but when, in a final - with tb could be updated to an American present, Robin is bady wounded, she decide that hey die different meaning of word "hood." TWOfollowing visual versio "gether, and Pours out a poisonous potion. The lovedea& from

Robin Hood of Hollywood 169

a Strong Marian in the drady impressive person ofumafiurman: enemies. B~ &is time, however, Arabs are seen in a light less I tic than in traditions Orientalism, and from the stan Robin is given the director permis he; to ogle Robin coolly from deria and win- , new partner, the wise, skilled Moor hem, with whom he dews. Her possession of the sexualized tansmutes into her own from a Saracen jail in the opening scenes and who stays with him plan to impersonate a boy to join the band and to escape her unwanted throughout hefilm. The fipre was perhaps suggested by Nazir from s~it~'Sk Myla de Fhnet, played in highly inappropriate Prusrian ~~bj~of SherWOodythe Arab who leaves his evil master to supPo* sfiby Jiirgen Prodinow. Intriguingly-and Amindy-&is strong Robin. This new Lit& John represents a range of Eastern wisdom- Maria seems to dredge up from the scriptwriter's unmnscious he science in his telescope and explosives, medicine in his skill with motif of female sorcery Marian is impersonated to tap Robin. as well as warrior skills and general wise advice- The Arab This fBlse Marian is played by the sheriffs mistress, as if her sex- element of Azcem &o has contemporary meaning: links with the " ual itself maker her un~twonhy,and she calls to Robin in ~~lfw~~and Odentalism have been outlined by Kathleen Biddido i: enticingly witch-ke toner. The red Marian, as a boy, bre& the this leads to an =citing chase when he/she and Robin escape. ~h~~ ~ili~images of he ~~lfWar invaded the film. . . - The might sound as if the unsexualizcd woman saw the hero hornthe missile-nose vim of targea that became familiar to a tdwision &gers of sexualized femininiv, but there is a twist: in triumph at watching the trajectories of scud missiles translated their escape the "boyyykina Robin-to his insrant pleasure and into he film's signature specid effect-arr~w-nose views of nearly insat h~.The scene at once supporu sophisticates "medid" The presence of- in the fih can deV.. . . the s-m that underlies the Marian" sequence: hedangerous be read in a number of ways. He is the "goox like Syria Or &' ki~~offers both homoaotic feeling and heterosexual release, just as in ~~~i~ and represents he "best" of Orientalism. . - . Others the traditional "between men'' triangle. read hemas a sign of the new Orientalism, governed ' This is as intricate the fh moving towvd contemporary by a new imperi&sm &at pits progressive hbsagainst hlaic ampIex sexuality via rhe forceful heroine. It also includes f~ndarnentalists.'~ references to the ~O~CSof 1980s Britain, no doubt inserted

hem'sinternationalism has a domestic meaning as I John McGmth the radical Smttid playwright the the pan is played in gravely distinguished mode by the African American script, as well as a strong reahm of setting and a conan- ican actor Morgan Freeman; this black Muslim taka a role like 'rated vigor bemeen Robin and Marian. But he film low pace after ing ~i~d,the SioU wise man in Dmces with Wolves- The fi~reys the "false Marian" episode, and the conclusion, in the outlaws meaning in terms of American ram relations is emphasizd seize the carnival revelers, confirms the sense seizure of Robin's &her at night, in a sane that i that the most significant thing about Robin is the twinkle in his eye torches and Ku Klan robes, though the deer-killing P and his boyish charm. In Flynn and the more mature &-cry by motif is asopresent, as usual, to initiate Robin's outlawry. mntrast, those qdities are used to combine international liberalism with excitingly perilous fighting. The film of 1991 was less elaborate in production las wide-rmging in reference. It was Simply called Robin Not only the power of a sW and massive bding Robin film indicates that the hero's real name is Roben Hode and fince of Tbiew the more s~ccessfuland iduentia of the 1991 mhhemild change of name when driven to heforest Though the Bergin film ha, especially in iu leading actors, the with his friend the sheriff over--of ~0urse-apeasant potentid to renew the hegor of the myth, &at possibility is never ad- M~~ viewen found Bergin more lively than Gsmer, wi 'quarely developed. Liberal abroad adat home, maolrrly enMng ironic eyes md his cheeky, almost self-bristling, moustache. The "d mvra@rid~skilled GstnerYsRobin Hood resonates with the ...... ,- ...... ~./;...... - ,.-' . .~> . ,, >.'.... ,<,...... ' .,.:.: '.,.:...... <~, ;' .,;?.. ,*,:.(.<...... ~. . , p....,L t:,m:gr:; . .I..,, . * -1.7

172 Chapter 4 Robin Hood of Hollpood + of a major change of position in the whole myth, and the beginning Hood7 a television series made by a Franco-American consor-um in of a decidedly nmsqe in Robin's mythic biography. This stage Iithuania and released by Warner Brothers, "who," Says leffrey be developed more strongly as writers of feminist fiction consider Richards, "should really have known better."l5 Shown around he what they might contribute to the oudaw tadition. world in 199779, and drawing on the success of the television series Gender is also the starting point of dissent for Robin Hood: Men Xena: Wadr princess in combining antique fsntasy with kung-fu in zg,$fgho,directed by Me1 Brooks and released in 1993. Rapondin% s~leaction, this promoted to hero standing in its first season directly and in detail to Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, this is in Matthew Porretta, the actor who had played TJlr~flScarlet O'Hara in he Brooks tradition of mocking an identifiable genre--= in his Robin Hood in z'hn. His version of Robin is closer to sofi-porn groundbreaking B(nzing Saddles-and develops an idea that the film than to outdoor adventure, with luxuriant mustache and tight young Brooks had written for Sid Caesar's parodic series Whm Things clothing, and he has a leather-bikini-clad, stomy handsome Marian Were Ronen on iq7os television. It is a complete story: Robin rescuer to reflect inarrivel)' the impaCt of Xena in living rooms aroundthe Marim from the sheriff of Rottingham (Roger Rees valiantly trying world- The second season had a more mainstream Robin in John to parody Rickman's self-parody), is rescued himself from the gallows Bradley, whom Richards describes as "a muscle-bound WASP by he arrival of King Richard (Patrick Stewart as a cut-prim Sean Magic transfbrmauons md highly improbable fighB with cannery), and finally marries Marian by the doubtfd authod'7 of mebdramatic villains made this an exotic mix combining the tones of Rabbi Tuchan (Me1 Brooks playing himself). Throughout, Robin . modern fiction ad nineteenth-century pantomime, wen has the of his outlaws, but this is of limited use as th~are though it was flmed in Lithuania, presumably for financial reasons. primarily a maechorus dressed for the centerpiece song and dan~ .: But the persondhd politics of W'n moderniry ' in Men, Men in Tights." This foregrounds the homosocial, even one semnd-season episode the outlaws are caught in a castle of their homosexual, dements &at have long lurked in the tradition, but the own fears7 and only with Robin's stalwart aid against he oppression film is more cautious than its title might suggest. None ofthe outlaws of negative th0ug.h~(the internalized sheriffs of modern psycho- is permitted to be actually gay; even Little John, thou& thoroughly babble) do they 1- to believe in themselves enough to uiumph over

* cowed by Maid Madan's huge Germanic servant, accepfs a hetero- their own anxieties. The series pushed the hero close to bathos, if sexual, if subservient, role with her. his authori~survived at dl it may have had more to do with the long This is not the only ultimately uaditiond feature of the film. A1- ' ' tradition of heoutlaw myth than with the nature of &is cheaply and though it is full of prody and nonsense-Gary Iilwes says, "1 am the ofren clumsily made series. And yet here too the hero's was only Robin Hood who can speak with an English accent," and a tire* remade, if in a band way. some running kg involves the blind outlaw Blinkin-it makes re- Even here and even in Brooks's hands, the sunrives. mat- peated reference to other Robin Hood films." In a roundabout and : ever happens to Robin Hood in film, whether he is an acrobat, a ironivd way, the film subscribes to the hero's standing, including his slighd~overweight officer we, a fox, a frog, a stylish coward, even mwuliniv: only he will unlock Marian's chastity belt7 with howfler the leader of a Californian burlesque troupe, Robin ~~~d sarerains much difficulry. Within the farcical structure of this film the con a certain heroic standing. Just as Robin Hood has given vigor to the image remains dashingly masculine, improbably theatrical hem dnema, so cinema has given him a face, a physique, a~on,drama, who has intrigued audiences for six centuries; though small and and atended politics both domestic and internationd. Essentially baffled, caryElwa is a perfectly formed Robin Hood who never Hou~woodand its relatives in the visual fiction business have quite loses his dignity. Robin Hood a figure of internauond standing, yet his many chaogs This is not so clearly the case in The New Advmmres of and dmelopmen~,even his vicissitudes at the hands of some film- Robin Hood of Hollytpood 175 174 + Chapter 4 + unmodernized, nonurban, naively charming, ethically simple, free of makers, have not radically changed the shape of the original hero. He the entanglements of modern civilization and contemporary moral remains noble but welcoming to all comers, physically powerhl but complexiqc It is hardly surprising that this pastoral Robin was popu- never oppressive, serious but always to some degree smiling, sexually lar in England, where antique forests and villages could still be visited, attractive but never MIy or finally partnered with either gender, and, and where the booming motor and petroleum industries gave strong most important, in d but one case still alive. support to internal tourism (Shell led the way with its maps and handbooks). But the emergence of the same phenomenon in Arner- ica, or at least the Eastern states, was less predictable. The English ma- Robirt Hood in Fiction terial was rapidly republished in America, and a good deal of local work was produced as well. Pyle's Mmy Adventures became a signifi- cant forerunner to the patriotic pastoral Robin, and the great libraries A Schoolchild's Hero of the United States are filled with plays, stories, and poetry antholo- gies of the same kind. The young Stephen Vincent Benk ventured a Nineteenth-century fiction, whether adult or juvenile, developed and classically Georgian poem on the hero with the refrain: amplified a fairly consistent figure of Robin Hood-active, gentle- manly, English and rural, settled deep in the forest among his male There's many a forest in the world, Friends, only remotely connected with the politics of his time. In the In many lands leaves fall; twentieth century wider variations molded the hero's career in fiction, But Sherwood, merry Shenvood, shaping him first as a fatherly figure for children, then as a more his- Is the fairest wood of a11.I7 torical hero involved in more or less credible political and military The widest influence derived From the frequent reprinting of maneuvers, and most recently as a figure seen from the double view- story collections, updatings of Pyle. Henry Gilbert's Robin Hood and point of female authors and of a substantially strengthened Marian. His Mmy Men of 1912was an eady and widely read version. It sug- To study the range of Robin Hood's identity in the early part of gesa liberal politics: the preface stam by saying, "Once upon a time the twentieth century is to be immediately struck by the extraordinary , the great mass of English people were unfree."18 Gilbert's retelling amount pdblished for children in the first three decades. To some ex- combines a Gry-tale simplicity with an insistent sense of need for re- tent this is because the market for all children's literature expanded form politics, and his hero has some of the strength of Hardy's massively duriig this period as children's literacy and education be- Gabriel Oak added to Georgian pastoral:

came major social concerns. Stories about a boyish and English Robii " His head of dark brown curls was covered by a velvet cap, at the Hood were felt to be appropriate reading for the young; the healthy side of which was stuck a short feather, pulled from the wing of activities of Robin and his friends, politically neutered as he largely a plover. His face, bronzed to a ruddy tan by wind and weather, was by his gentrification, were a model for young English boys and was open and frank, his eye shone like a wild bird's, and was as also, no doubt, girls. And if the coded phallic symbolism and the oven - fearless and noble. Great of limb was he, and seemingly of a homosociality of the stories entertained the young readers in darker strength beyond his age, which was about twenty five years. In directions, that was hardly something that teachers were likely to be^ one hand he carried a long-bow, while the other rested on the

conscious of or blamed for in those days before depth readings of tab smooth bole of the beech before him. (12) The Robin Hood materials had another appeal, descending This young-old Robin is a yeoman with his own sizable farm, but persuasively from Scott's potent concept of Robin Hood as ~n~lis6 he loves beyond his dass: Marian is an earl's daughter. Robin becomes the world the stories enshrined was that of an ideal ~n~lanh 192 + Chapter 4 I Robin Hood of Hollywood + 193 tive statement of how a woman can play a role in history. But the se- cheek by sturdy jowl with a figure weighed down with facts, history, quel does not the first novel's imaginative feminist rewriting of loation, and his own elements of wishful thinking and the tradition. real Robin Hood of historicism. From Saxon revolutionary and warlord, through fatherly forester and reformer, to strong woman's plafiing and heath prof=- sionars part-time assistant, Robin has come a long way in the fiction Hi* adMyth of the rnentieth century. The extremes are a good ddgreater than those to be found in visual form, as the special audience of fiction can have sharper interests than the bl outlaw Identifications for success on scrMnC"qe and cd Any formal talk, media interview, or even conversation about Robin Hood will generate the inevitable question "Did he redly exist?nThe way question itself deserves interrogation. It is a modern one: mtoun and Bower, like other medid writers, felt that entities existed if they were talked about and believed in, and for them Robin ~~~d, like King Arthur, Heme the Hunrer, the devil, the saints, and even God himself existed because of their manifold presence in human life and cultwe. That is not gwd mot& for modem materidin pea- pie who seek empirical identity for all things, and so by impliation like a for the~ndves.Reductive as &is approach might seem to literary laws rcBq scholars, and vulnerable to parody as it can be-as in the U.S. szln (see p- xii)--&s intoxicatingfy "rdRobin Hood remains 1 potent Part of the hero's biography. Highly respectable historians as well as enthusiastic amateurs are enticed into this quest for a satisfying ma- terial identity at the core of the otherwise elusive illusory mfi. Joseph Hunter's method of searching the apparent dross of the an4-k~and finding a fourteenth-century Robin Hood (see p. 145) has been foll~wedby some twentieth-century scholars, not with quite to &dr vim of Robin Hood some valued inurest, from ~~m the striking results that he published but with a few spec& ofpossi- through Gnismof both kinds to magic, pdsex, advario~ ble gold. In 1936 L. D. V Owen published a report*O of his discovev forms of fcmde power. ~ostof the terts at least a repecMbb" in the York assizes record for 1226 of a person called Robert Hood aaunpt to hisori- the hero with hcrua whose goods had been confiscated because he was a fugitive; that is, hwto dngdegrees mnsdody red~ebpdthe myrh and its he had been declared an outlaw for nonappearance at court in answer to a Sm~monsin the previous year. The hct that St. Peter's church in the brud bandit and the brought the case also seemed to fit wirh rhe early ballah. Either in the ad+teenth cen more puzzling or more supportive, depend& on your point of view, flllY Robin, bod &naa srar and novelist's hero, stood semi was the fact that in the margin the name "Hobbehod" was wriaen. 194 + Chapter 4 Robin Hood of HoUpood 199

a bandit or for singing outlaw stories. Neither Crook nor Holt con- Some have thought that this is a variant outlaw name, to be associ- siders the more likely possibility that Gilbert derived his name from ated with the recurring figure "Hobbe the Robber," mentioned in playing Robin's part in a local play-game. Pim Phwmnn as well as the contemporary "John Ball Letters" of the as 1381 Peasants' Re~olt.~'Owen contends that this fipre from 1225-26 But Holt also arguesfor the thirteenth cenrury being the ap- propriate context because of the habits, institutions, and even equip- is the actual person on whom the tradition became based. Such an ar- ment that are found in the Gest and other early ballads. In particular gument is based on the location of York and the outlawing of this per- he asserts that the strong hostility to the sheriff, the idea of wide- son-no more. There were in fact other people about with the same spread and oppressive forest law, and the emphasis on archery all be- name: if historical priority is to be a guide, there might be a case for long to the thirteenth rather than the fourteenth century, and he is the Robert Hood who worked for the Abbot of Cirenmter and killed skeptical about Hunter's identification: a man called Ralph there between 1213 and 1216. Perhaps that is too far west (and in play-game, not ballad territory), and Robin the social The one hard fact in it was that the king's journey described in bandit certainly did not work for the church-but this candidate is the Gest matched 's progress of 1323. The rest was a hy- only a little l&s likely than Owen's man. ~otheticalreconstruction. And it can be proved wrong. (47) Support for Owen's case has come from two sources. David Crook, like Hunter a professional archivist, revealed in 1984 that he Holt points out that Hunter's Robin Hood was only a royal servant, is had found in the legal archives of Reading (a play-game town) two not an outlaw, and that there only supposition in Hunter's linking of this man with the Wakefield Hood Family. Basically, Holt is saying records on the seizure of property of a fugitive from justice, William, that Robert or Robin Hood was not a very rare name, that finding the son of Robert Le Fevre (or in English, Bill Smith).'2 In 1261 he was simply mentioned under his own name; but when the justices looked original outlaw requires evidence of crime, and so Owen's man &om 1226 remains "the only possible original of Robin Hood, so fir dis- again at the case a year later, his name was given as W~lliamRobehod. : This change was the work of a clerk, and Crook interprets his action: covered" (54). Holt naturally welcomed Crook's support for the 1226 York man, The fact that the fugitive's father was named Robert, or Robin, staring in a later essay, "The discovery of this evidence by David must have suggested the alteration to him. The version of his Crook in 1984 was de~isive."~~The word "decisive" seems a little name originally written down lacked the element 'hoodn, strong for the elaborate interpretation of one name in one document, which was brought in when the name was changed. It is most and Holt went on to move this alleged fact into the realms of specu- unlikely that the person who changed it knew anything of the lation: "This gives some credence to John Major's date. h is further individual concerned and whether "hood" ever formed any part supported by the appearance of Robert Hood, fugitive, who failed to of any form of his name; he must have been drawing on what- appear before the justices at the York assizes in 1225" (28). ever he had heard of Robin Hood. (259-60) History here has become remarkably stretched. The 1262 "Robe- On this basis, Crook argues that the tradition of the hero already hod" reference can indeed, as Crook argues, support the idea that existed, and so Hunter's early fourteenth-century man could not have York in 1226 saw a real Robin Hood. But how can a real Robert Hood who becomes an outlaw in 1226 also be the noble robber of Major been the red Robin Hood. In further support of that view he cites J. in the II~OS? He has to be outlawed twice, the second time in ad- C. Holt's extensive arguments for a thirteenth-century Robin Hood, a vanced years. Holt is casting about for fragments to shore up the based in part on the striking discovery of the name Gilbert Ro thirteenthantury outlaw argument, and as it does so ohempiri- hood in Sussex in 1296.~~TOuse the full name as a surname suggeste cist history merges into wish-M11ing myth. Adding a note of sheer to Holt that this man was identified with the hero-either for bei Robin Hood of Hellyigood + 197 196 + Chapter 4 I improbabiliv, Halt comments that Thomas Gde, Dean of "left of the long essay Maddicotr ~~SCUSS~in dose detail people who, among his papers a note of an epitaph which recorded that Robin he feels? might have become characters in the outlaw tra&tion. E~- died cz4Kalen& December 1~~7.'" AS has been suggested (p- 851, this piricism runs -pant though contenders for sheriff,abbot, prioress, is a nonsensical Latin date and apparently a joking reference to and a of red oudaws-but no mention of Robin ~~d~1- Chrism Day. Nevertheless, Halt offers 1247 the death dare thou& Maddicott's rebuttal of Halt's thirteenthscnrury basis would this now entirely imqrinq Robin, though he does admit that this is appear to reestablish Hunter's man of the early r32os, Mad&coa somewhattendentious reconstruction, and a shadowy biographyy' shows no interest in that figure. TO his own satisfacton he placer the (28).The my& of historicist biography anhardly go further: there is birth of the tradition in the 1330s, but, as he findyadmits, "the an urgently felt need for a figure, and a gathering of scattered, unre- trd figure is still missing" (254). He prefers to imagine Robin as being lared derails to suggest his existence. It is in fact extremely improba- ''a blend offact and finion" (254), based on one of several ou&ws ble that if had been a developed myth of Robin Hood in the he has been discussing. It is quite true that Hunter's man weno sign thirteenth century there would have been no referenas to it of criminality, but he did have the right name, he did -t wifiin than the 1262 one, ifself of dubious weight. ~istoriogra~hicall~ Maddicon's period, and he did have dealings King ~d~~din speaking, he Robin Hood" historians have made life difficult the right Put of the countv: a rigorous historicism should surely dis- for themselves by assuming that the outlaw of the ballads must be the cuss him. But Maddicott is more independent, more more figure.~t is far more likely that this social bandit is a specid mythic than that- The individual who is in fict constructed in his- context, the towns of the Midlands and North, torkt empiricism appears to be not Robin Hood but the creation of a . and that the play-game figure is the origind Robin Hood, red only in identity of the historian hims&. the sense that he is the focus of a real myth. Yet the tradition of Hunter h not been entirely ov~ookedor Another experienced historian has challenged Halt's argument rrje==d. 1952 1. W. Walker, a medical man and prolific amavur about the thirteen&-cent~vcontext on historical gmunds- J. R. historian from'wikefidd in Yorkshire, published ThTne *hryof Maddicott, in a lengthy essay called "The Birth and Setting the Hood' this has a tide much like that of a and like of Robin Hood" (1978), starts by noting the late medied many of them is a gathering togetkr of disparate materials. Whr B&& " shape ofmu* context of the ballad (which Halt concedes early uses real or invented ballad tides for his chapters; thus Hunter's ma- in his esay).45 Then Maddicott insists that arguments about an un- on Robin as a Contrariant supporting Thomas, hlof h- derlying &irteen&-antury structure are historically wrong: he cites ' caster, against Edward 11 is entitled "How and menRobin B~~~ Halt's allegedly thirteenth-century knights, i an Oudaw-*' Other chapters use ballad tide and retell their storia, evidence ' sherifi, and forests and asserts that they are in fact all represented in with ample quotations. The format, titles, and tone of fourteenth-century forms. He conclude that "There is, then, booklet neatly indicate how "true histoy" is part ofa mythic ing in the GM or the other early ballads which would place themat saaure, a fature that is effectively conceded--or perhaps subtly all in hethirteenth century.'" Maddicott's SSaY is so far a em~hasized-in the cool prose of a Hunter or a Halt, but which is professional historical discussion, bringing counterevidence to entidy UndemandabIe as a quest for human idcntiv fiatboth re- pute ~~l<~claim, and it appears to have the better of the debate. But and ratifies the identity of the writer who tracer it. we are only on pqe four, with eighteen to go. What we discover is A laelaborate version of post-Hunter scholarship has been pro- hatMaddicoai purpose was not to speak about the fourteenth-' by Percy Valentine Harris. His booklets have appeared in many or social meaning of Robin Hood, but to focus in a editions, but hey all purport to tell The Ti& Robin ~~~d,a truth new way on ~~lt~~own dream of a biography for a red Person-In th to Yorkrhire, not Norringham, accepting Hunter's

200 + Chapter 4 Robin Hood ofHolZpood 201

It is a view derived from the issues and symbols the text, and one to robbing the rich to give to the poor, a point missed by many (in- of that seems valid for a good deal of the Robin Hood narratives, in- cluding E. l? Hobsbawm in his influential book Bandi~).~~He also cluding the films of the twentieth century. noted that the 1381 Rising was largely confined to the South, while the ballads are set in the North. Coss's general reading of the symbolism of Robin is parallel to a Holt also challenged Hilton over the meaning of the word "yeo- more specific but also basically "Utopian" reading of the texts, The 'Misery' of Robin Hood: New Social Context for the Texts" by man": he asserted that it can also refer to the lower levels of the A Richard Tvdif (1983). Tardif sees the forest not as a distant romantic landowning class. Centrally, he argued that the ballads have a higher escape but as a nearby and available place of freedom, real and imag- social level of audience than Hilton identified. Holt saw their themes ined. Through tracing contemporary movements in England and as expressing the discontent of modest landowners and those who as- France, he argues that urban journeymen, skilled tradesmen who had pired to those levels, all of them identifying in the outlaw story their own sense of a need for resistance to royal law and to clerical op- no means to set up a business but had to hire themselves out as work- pression. en, were the prime audience of the texts; his tide links the mastery of The strength of Holt's argument is that it deals with the texts and a trade to the puzzle of Robin Hood's political-historical meaning and understands that an audience's interests in a text may depend on a context, and he sums up: crucial difference between audience and text. However, this view It seems that there were two somewhat contradictory images of ..: . takes no account of the role of town and forest in the texts and does collective action available to the class of urban-serving-men not explain why the ballads remained so popular with urban audi- seeking weafth and power-that of the fringe-dwelling gang, ences through the seventeenth cenrury. It therefore seems unnecessary 1 and that of rhe suppressed journeyman. . . .A gap has opened for Maurice Keen to have recanted his pro-Hilton position in order up between rheir actual live and the dominant ideological to espouse Holt's vie~s.5~ forms in their society, which no longer accounted adequately for A more nuanced response to both the limits of Hilton's account those lives. The array of associations that arise from the Robin , and to Holt's range of arguments was offered in 1985 by Peter Coss, a Hood band and are constituted in the Robin Hood ballads form sociocultural historian. Coss has a strong sense of the multifarious na- a network of paths traced across this gap.59 ture of texts in the period, both their availability at many levels and the variety of responses to them. He feels 'The Gest of Rob Hood Like ~ilion'sconnection with 1381, Tardifs localization of the point of origin of the ballads may be too precise to account for all the carries within it the social crisis of late fourteenth-century England developing features and all the popularity of the ballads; Henry WII though not perhaps in quite the way Hilton once envisaged."' He ' sees the Gm as responding to a world of social dissolution and op- was imitating Robin within a fcw decades (see p. 46). Bur Tardif is the only commentator who has understood how literary genres de- portunistic oppression, as envisaging in the forest a better world: velopin a gap of collective self-consciousness that must be both ide- ologially and generically filled. He also is the only commentator who a secular commonwealth of the free bereft of (corrupt) adminis- has given any account of the role that towns might have played spe- trators and of the religious, where there is free access to the cifically in the development of the ballad outlaw Robin Hood as dif- beasts of the forest and the "foules of the ryvere", where status ferenr from the benign lod hero of the play-games. Whereas some distinctions are considerably reduced and where the king is du- ' historians have produced some of the most limited intellectually tifully and courteously acknowledged as lord-but not to the and self-centered of the accounts of the hero's biography, others have extent of compromising one's freedom. (340)

204 Chapter 4 1 Danny Spooner, an English folksinger living in Australia, liked to Man" element in the hero;" the topic deserves more attention and preface his performance of :The Death of Robin Hood" with a story, more systematic analysis than it has received. A pod start in this direction is a little-noticed essay by the folk- toId in sad, serious tones. lorist Joseph Nag, a reading of the figure in structural anthropologi- Robin Hood was dying, in Kirklees Abbey. The Prioress it was, cal terms as "not so much a figure who exists outside society as one his own cousin, who had betrayed him. Little john held him in who exists between culture and nature, and several other opposed h1s ' arms. pairs of categories as Finding liminaliry in pain such as town- "John," Robin whispered, "John, bring me my bow, and forest, human-divine, man-woman, human-animal, stealer-giver, wherever the arrow lands, bury me there." ruler-anarchist, and classed-cros class, Nagy concludes chat: John brought the bow and Robin, growing weak now, dm back the string as Far as he could, pale fingers holding the arrow. The Robin Hood narrative tradition originated in medieval En- He glanced in pain at John. glish society, but the values which these narrative communi- 'Where the arrow lands . . . bury me." cated were rdevimt in the post-medid world as wdl, and the So they buried him on top of the wardrobe. liminal context in which they were expressed continued to exert Fascination. (425) The irreverence somehow added to, rather ruined, the Reading in Levi-StraussiaIl terms as a Set of ways in which sadness of the ensuing song. people interpret their world, and SO can cope with it, Na%)is account Another piece of Robin Hood apocrypha is a "TestYour Charac- of he mystic tone of Robin Hood is both 1~sexotic and 1s im- Story that was going around offices worldwide in the 1980s, be- probable than that of hard-core Green Man theorists, and is also fore e-md and the Internet existed. In photocopied form it has sur- a good deal more fl&ble. In the absence of any purposive or MYde- faced in several places. First you read a story: veloped Freudian, Marxist, or gender-based interpretations (all of Robin was captured by the Shera, who decided to hang him in might be possible, but have SO hr made only fiagmen~'P- can be be- the morning. Marian went to the Sheriffand begged for Robin's Faranm),@ odyNw-and the other mythiciso, if lift. ll~Sheriff said he would fm Robin if she would slgp with lieved-have offered the kind of deep explanation of the Powa Of the him. tradition that might explain at least some of the appeal of the She agreed, and did so, and the Sheriff freed Robin. Next hero in so many contexts and cultures- morning, * they were riding away from the Robin asked Marian how she saved his life, and she told him. He was a~~alcdand abandoned her in disgust. Little John rode up beside Marian; he said he had always loved her and asked if she HOWMav Robh Hook? would be willing to become his partner. She %reed, and they rode off together. ill^^ and myth and everyday hero, village symbol and in- ternational liberal, joker and rebel, nature lover and fierce hunter? After reading the story, your task is to list the four characters in the boyish ,-harmer and father figure to children, man among men and order in which you value their behavior, best first. youthen can turn helper to strong women-Robin Hood's identity seems to undergo herePonsa that identify your character. Discussing the mamer is endless variations in verbal and visual texts. And yet there are other liable to camchaos at dinner parties, especially bemeen couples. Robin Hoods, figures stranger and yet more intimate than those That puzzle shows clear signs of feminist relativism, but male which are, so far, recorded. chauvinism still exists in the myth. Though Robin ~~~d never came zo6 + Chapter 4 I Robin Hood of Ho@md 207 to wala (the national bandit is the sixteenth-cenw anti-Tudor pr~m.And when Renaissance writen, from Jobn ~~j~~ trihter Twm Sion Cati of Tregaon-Tom Jona, son of Ksie), On, gentrified that mdtion, they gave it a new sodd led and gb- welsh in&& something that sounds n~uchlike Ow which has made it more acceptable, from the qeto sm-loving ac-jviq In Barry, a moderately tough South Wales Po*, an HoYRMod Finding backing for a Sir &bin fjn be-, easierban camid takes in early summer. Robin Hood and his men aP- Ob-ng funding for, say, one about Tom Pak ~~d e,if the pear, yje Morris Dancers. They caper throd the street% and Romantic writers had not meshed, though he of ~i~~~~'~ sionally rh*r leader blows a horn. When this occurs, the men -~al edition, the biopphy of a lord with the adtemmt of a ban- gather around an amactive woman, shouting and jumping- Then d~~ dt's deds, the myrh would never have extended to he pantin so strong a form. horn is blown and the men dance away; the leader brandkhes a set of lacy lingerie. In the mentiedl and twmty-first centuries, there can be lide Heroism burlsqued, gender-prejudice explored, gang-raPe doubt that the international power of the ourlaw my& is based not brated cmivd-Robin Hood in the modern popular mouth is On the inniguing novels, comia, and ~chool-~la~readen, but on he h&ly a mild flavor. If a modern F. J. Child were to ransack the En- striking suitabilit>'of the Robin Hood story for &e screen. ~~d the glish-sp&ng countrie-and very likely others as weu-an more tehnically subtle the visuals become, the more potent hem+ pedia of Robin Hood apocrypha would no doubt testify both to the becomes. At the same time, ~OWET~~,the mq$c fighting of The jvnu rnraordinary richnos of the p~p~l~imagination and to deep ; "~rntt~~~$Robin Hood may fake the technical possibilitia one step laid perseverance of Robin Hood a channel for many wied into burlesque, and mod weight of the hero has gener-

These form range from the beauty of nature to the violence of , ated sardonic responses in 2%~&&ia and Shrek. pression and in the combine with many varied reflections on Like myrhs, that of Robin Hmd survives both across time and gender, race, politics, time, and even the supernaturd. tbu& he;it is constantly ~nadeand varied in ways chat Robin biography is myth~cin that the Im&iform figure dire*ors, aaors, and even reader6 and audiences feelIraher than doe not have physical identity-and it seems highly improbable, or rhink-is appropriate to their own contexts. The intensity of at- ,, least unprovable, &at a Mr. R. Hood ever existed. But his biogra" i taChment appas to vary Over dme, huwevu. It is noticeable that phy is also in that it has the scope, variety, and dynamic con- there have been Several periods of high a&iv in the Robin ~~~d tinuiry of a myth. Yet a study of the elements of the myth idiC2+WS , tradition- The 1980s, the years between the & Wodd Wars, and the ' hathis is not ioelf natural; there is no cosmic law that there must 1820*~ well as perhaps the 1840+were d periods of high Robin

be a Robin Hood. What has happened is that elements ofthe myrh a Hood activi9'- Drawing similar conclusions about earlier eras is more have inrerated crative minds in different periods in different ways, but evidence suggm another period of busy production in and tach has driven he in a new direction-asentially, driven the 1660s and 1670s, as perhaps the 159os, the +qoos, and it onward, given it new vigor. wen, conceivably, the late fourteen& century. When somebody-~~ociated with @ds, perhaps-med the ' What is notable about these periods of increased Robin Hood ac- m~u~orirypr& of the fative village fertility figue into the basis '~~'7'is that they are times when government has been ovefily and for a tm-fora my& against oppression, and the Robin Hood conscj~~sl~repressive. It is easy to see how he &bin ~~~d stories were born, a major step W?E taken: the outlaw moved of the 19bs, induding the hlms of 1991, are awe of the rnperiene into recoverable culture. wthout those cbvaacterofthe Reagan-Thatcher years and respond to it vigor. hata live on paper and in the mouth, away from the perform The Robin Hood myth has operated in times of politid str= as of the V&geFen, he myth would have died with other Wmm a expression for people conscious of kinds of oppre,ssion,

- r- 208 4 Chapter 4 RobHood of HoUpood r GB:, 1 k: 1 including he posmar conservatism of 1820~~the witch-hunting Or " ph~edby Errol Flynn. Robin may be more ovee a threat to . Restoration of 1660, men %ainst the increlsing pumoia of the late &sting soda1 order, as in the social bandit ballads in killing the Elizabethan period and the growing represive buraucrac~of the seems the right way to proceed (shades there) or in world of Henry VII. Thus, the "rhymes of Robin Hood" that Lmg- Robin of Sbmood in which working-class oretion wst land spoke of may be ultimately, if indirectly, related to he dismr- ~~~rasbestate seems the key feature-and, not surprisin& in 1g84, banca of he sociopoliti~~very troubled late fourteenth century- the Yaof the defeated British miners' st&, ngded some magic to Hilton's speculation about Robin Hood and 1381 was too specificand make a success of it. too unliterary to receive full assent. But to read the tradition over But Robin is no more than a focus of a dream ofrshce: he is tirne it seem likely that Hilton, most of the literary cornmen- not the figure on the banen of revolution. The rnyrh contains no tators from Child to Ohlgren and among the historians Maddian, pkns for ~uineredistribution, no new electoral vtem, no models Bellamy, and, wentidy, Dobson and Taylor, ae ri&t to think &at politid oetionthat might actually work berrer. The ~~bi~ l3ood myth does not s~~facein I? Thompson's exhaustive study on his symbol rsistance to oppression originated in a mnturY both E. terrible and rnagnifimnt-~hen in socid, economic and literary of English mrkiq C'because &t wsa different terms En@d and its culture began to separate from the lega9'~and kind of strUgglc: was dvar, fought out in discussions, plan- the shackles, of antiquity. ning? in hand-to-hand anAin v&& hegemonic bw, not the simpler monke-booJdng m~dad'% %bin Hood tradition To study Robin Hood is to study over five bun k pro- derelopment of concepts of heroism an, polida, "de* t-h mytb ga&ugh periods of dynamic activity, it self- lt is an exciting enthralling domain of indeed a de,a.~ the reflex of genuine politid self bscome a guide to the changing panerm and resismnce to opFesion. and over that en&mous period. Robin But hat is nof to say dur the COIWXP~ of resistance, hownrer eu- culture H ' lurking at the edge of court culture, slipping through the forests hemi id and -valizd in ballads and plays, fiction and filar,is id^^, jumping over hewall of bourgeois fiction, not both to peo#b concepts of freedom, and to he ing into the visual carnival of 6Lm and television. history in which they live md which remake. The anapt Biographies to find one fem~e-preferably a of outlaw raisme has utopian exchange v&e, however it may be flaWW&atprovida hekey to interpretation of the life ofthe subjar contained or even mwsed in particular contexts. And one most the case of Robin Hood, concepts such flexibility, sa&ngand perhaps men enmumging-aspects of the Robin Hood dFism, and are all applicable but inadequate ba~-~' *ym is that it is in hcr increasingly worldwide; hefigure has provided an they refer only to the technical structure of the myth- The kcl feature 'L internationally comprehended figure who smhfor resheto in the biography of Robin Hood is in its own way scan wrongful authority whether he is Ravi in India or Robin des ~~i~ in it bsisw on confrontation, if sometimes of a n~ufsedkind, with the France- As mmmerce and industrial praiuction is intermtiond, so rnervatiVeforces of my period, politid or financial, and is a &I- Robin Hood is a fipre who can, on a worldwide buis, imply rais- 'lna Or at least rmraint to ally form that we indined 10 operate like Robin Hood always represents resistance to au sheria On bMofthe monatchic power of internationa capidism. wayr a &rat to somebody who has power. Th men Lan@d first mendoos Robin Hood, he an of what a slothful person is intermed in imtead of his proper euphemizd, as &en he resists only a bad king or much a self-helping kind to the poor and to women, But neither in person nor as a myth could Robin Hood be ac- horepresenting unchqing social order, in Thomas hePa of sloth. He combines vigor, movement, and youwnesswih his key feature of resistance to wrongful authority; and though there is certainly more to reform, restitution, and redistribution than run- ning and jumping and looking good in tight clothing, the idea that such energies should be committed to some form of resistance is at once the central idea, the basis for endurance, and the strongest value of Robin Hood's mythic.biography. 224 + Notes to Pages 143-1 48 Notes to Pages 148-1 58 + 225

54. G. P R James, Forest Days: A Romance of Old Emes, 3 vols. (London: 66. See Marcus Smith and Julian Wasserman, "Travels with a Green Crayon," in Saunders and Odey, 1843). Robin Hood MedievalandPost-Medieval, ed. Helen Phillips (Cambridge: Brewer, forth- 55. "G. F.," review of Robin Hoodand Littkjohn, by Pierce Egan, London and coming). wetminster Qlutrter& 33 (1840): 45-91. 67. Henry Thoreau, "Walking," in fitunions (Boston: Tickner and Field, 56. Ritson did know the fragment of this ballad held in the British Library; 1880), 164. he transcribes it in his introduction, 1:lxxvi-vii, and comments that it appears to 68. In chapter 8 of Tom Sawyet Tom leads an imitation of "Robin Hood and be part of an outlaw story earlier than the Gest, but it was too fragmentary to Guy of Gisborne," and he plays a version of "The Death of Robin Hood." reprint. The ballad was first printed by Robert Jamieson in Popular Balk-& and 69. Alexandre Dumas, Robin Hood. Prince des Vokutr (Paris: Lwy, 1872), and Robin Hood Prosm't (Paris: Levy, 1873). Songs, 2 vols. (Edinburgh: Constable, 1806), 2:54-72, and then, i little less inac- k i curately transcribed, in C. H. Hartshorne, ed., Ancient Metrical Tales (London: i Pickering, 1829), 179-97. An accurate version, corrected by Sir Frederick Madden, ! IK Robin Hood of Hollpood I was added at the end of the second edition of Ritson's collection (London: Pickering, 1832), appendix 8, 221-36. Only in J. M. Gutch's edition of 1847 (see I. Kevin Harty, The Reel Mi&& Age: Ammian, Western and &tern Europe- note 58), who called it "A Tde of Robin Hood," did the ballad become widely an, MUEastern, and Arian Film about Medieval Europe (Jefferson, N.C.: known. McFarland, 1999).

57. See F.J. Child, ed., The English and Sconish Popular BaUadr, 5 vols. 2. Thomas Hahn and Stephen Knight, " 'Exempt Me Sire, I Am Afeard of (Boston: Barker, 1904; reprint, New York: Dover, 1965), 2:4.12-15; as Child notes, Women': Gendering Robin Hood," in The Outlaw Tradition: Nm Interdisciplinary 2412, Mrs. Brown of Falkland, the celebrated ballad-transmitter, appears to have Ejsays, ed. Helen Phillips (Manchester: Manchester University Press, forthcoming). adapted "Willie and Earl Richard's Daughter" to provide a ballad about Robin 3. As Kevin Brownlow notes in l3e Parade? Gone By (London: Secker and Hood's birth. Child suggests she was prompted by the presence of a character called Warburg, 1968), 290, this is from Charles Kingsley's "Old and New." The original "Brown Robin" in the related ballad "Rose the Red and White Lily" (2:41~-2q). text is in two long lines, not four short ones; see Charles Kingsley, Poems, 2 vols. Gutch published the latter ballad as being about Robin Hood. (London: Macmillan, 1884), 2:99. The full text is: 58. Child, ed., English andscotrish Popular BaW, 3x70; the ballad is reprint- ed in Knight and Ohlgren, ed., Robin Hood and Other Outlaw Tales, 628--32. See how the autumn leaves float by decaying, 59. J. M. Gutch, ed., A Lpcl Gest ofRobin Hodc, with Other Ancient &Modern Down the wild swirls of the rain-swollen stream. So fleet the works of men, back to their earth again; BaUadc and Songs Relating to this Celebrated %oman, 2 vols. (London: Longman, 1847), ~:i. Ancient and holy things fade like a dream. 60. Joseph Hunter, "The Great Hero of the Ancient Minstrelsy of England: Nay! see the spring-blossoms steal forth a-maying, Robin Hood, hi period, real character etc., investigated," in Critical and Historical Clothing with tender hues orchard and glen; Trm, vol. 4 (London: Smith, 1852), 28-38; see in particular 35-39. So, though old forms pass by, ne'er shall their spirit die, 61. Thomas Wright, "On the Popular Cycle of the Robin Hood Ballads," essay Look! England's bare boughs show green leaf again. 17 in hyson the Literatures, Superstitions, and History ofEngland in the Middle&, I am indebted to Jefiey Richards for the Brownlow reference. 2 ~01s.(London: Smith, 1846), 2x64-211. . 62. Stocqueler, Memoirs of a Journalist, 53; though the first book ~ublication, 4. See Brownlow, Parade? Gone By, 285, and Richard Schickel, Dough this is an "enlarged, revised edition" because the memoirs first appeared in the news- Fairbanks-The Fimt Celebrity (London: Elm Tree, 1976), 75. paper and were elaborated in book form. 5. Brownlow records that the film cost Fairbanks $1.4 million dollars and 63. C. W. Brooks, C. L. Kearney, and Joachim Stocqueler, Robin Hood and took in $2.5 million; see Parade? Gone By, 290. Richad Coeur de Lion in Plays (London: Fairbrother, 1859). 6. Rudy Behlmer, "Robin Hood on the Screen: From LRgend to Film," in 64. F. R Goodyer, Once Upon a EmorA Midnrmmer Night? Dream in Menit' Robin Hood Anthob of Scholarship and Criticism, ed. Stephen Knight (Cambridge: Sherwood A Fairy Extravaganvl (Nortingham: Allen, 1868). Brewer, 1999), w-60; see in particular 448. 65. John Oxenford and G.A. MacFarren, Robin Hood An Opera (London: 7. Ina Rae Hark, "The Visual Politics of The Adventurn of Robin Hood" Cramer, Beale and Chappel, 1860); New and Original Grand Christmas Pantomi&!' JoudofPopukzr Fiction 5 (1976): 3-17; see in particular 6. Robin Hood (Manchester: Theatre Rod Press, 1851). 8. See Behlmer, "Robin Hood on the Screen," 456.

228 + Notes to Pages 199-204 Notes to Page 204 + 229

3-44; reprinted in Knight, ed., Robin Hood Anthology of Scholarship and Criticism, offered a gender-based reading in "Horseplay: Robin Hood, Guy of Gisborne, and 197-210; see in particular 197 and 199. the Neg(oti)ation of the Bestial." in Robin Hood in Popukr Cuh,ed. H&n, 54. Maurice Keen, "Robin Hood-Peasant or Gentleman?" in Past and hsent 101-10. In the same volume the outlaw tradition is wen from a feminist viewpaint 19 (1961): 7-15; reprinted in Hilton, ed., Peasants, Knights and Heretics, 258-66. in Sherron Lu's %And the 'Reel' ," 151-Go, and Evelyn PerT's 55. Holt, "Origins and the Audience." "Disguising and Revealing the Female Hero's Identity: Cross-Dressing in the Ballad 56. Eric Hobsbawm, Bandits, rev. ed. (London: Penguin, 1985). of Robin HoodandMadMarian," 19196. The essay by Thomas Hlhn and Stephen 57. When Hilton reprinted the Robin Hood essays from Past and Present in Knight (see note 2) also operates in the field of gender. Though they and Kanc are Peasants, Knights and Heretics, Keen, in an afterword (266) to his essay (see note 54), aware of the possibility of Freudian readings, no full-scale interpretation following changed his support from Hilton to Holt, saying, "I do not believe that any attempt Freud or his successors, including Lacan, appears to have yet been offered, which to relate the Robin Hood story to the social pressures of the Peasants' Revolt will seems surprising in the context of so much suggestive and potentially symbolic stand up to scrutiny." material. 58. Peter Coss, "Aspects of Cultural Diffusion in Medieval England: The Early Romances, Local Society, and Robin Hood," Past and hsent 108 (1985): 35-79; reprinted in abbreviated form, concenmting on the Robin Hood sequences, in Knight, ed., Robin Hood. Anthology of Scholavship and Criticism, 323-42; see in par- ticular MI. 59. Richard Tardif, "The 'Mistery' of Robin Hood: A New Social Context for the Texts," in Word and World: Shldies in the Social Rok of Verbal Culture, ed. S. Knight and S. Mukherjee (Sydney: Sydney Association for Studies in Society and Culture, 1983); reprinted in Knight, ed., Robin Hood Anthology of Schoknhip and Criticism, 345-61; see in panicular 360. 60. "Robin Hood," in Dictionary of Natiod Biograpb ed. Leslie Stephen and Sidney Lee (London: Smith Elder, 1885-I~IO), vol. 26 (1891): 421-24; reprinted in Knight, ed., Robin Hood- Anthology of Scholarship and Criticism, 373-84; see in par- ticular 379. 61. J. W. Hales and F. J. Snell, "Robin Hood," in Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th ed. (London: Cambridge University Press, I~IO),el. 62. Robert Graves, The White Goddess (London: Faber, 1948), 350. 63. Margaret Murray, The God of the Witches (London: Faber, 1931), 35-36. 64. Lord Raglan, "Robin Hood," a chapter in The Hero (London: Methuen, 1936); reprinted in Knight, ed., Robin Hood- Anthology ofSchokrship and Criticirm, 385-91; see in particular 389-90. 65. John Matthews, Robin Hood. Green Lord of the Wldwood (Glastonbury: Gothic Image, 1993), 100. 66. Lorraine Kochanske Stock, "Lords of the Wildwood: The Wild Man, the Green Man, and Robin Hood," in Robin Hood in Popular Culture, ed. Hahn, 139-49- 67. Joseph Faladry Nagy, "The Paradoxes of Robin Hood," Folklore 91 (1980): 198-210; reprinted in Knight, ed., Robin Hood: Anthology of Scholarship and Criticrim, 41-25; see in particular 41. 68. Rodney Hilton's account of the audience is primarily a Marxist reading, and RichardTardifs essay is a more nuanced account in that mode; Stuart Kane has